This blog tracks a ten year epic of kick-starting a whole writing career, with spies and thrillers and now, vampires. I cover the creative process, stuff that blows up, history, philosophy, and theology. If you like any or all of the above, you'll like this one. We talk about comic books, movies, music, and writing. Usually, all at the same time.

The last three days before the due date, I pounded out a short story called "Arresting Merlin." It starts off with a 12 year old who tried to murder the mayor of New York City with a wrought iron flamingo, because, well, how else do you kill an evil fae?

I had fun. And it was insane. And I threw it in just as something different. Though, as someone pointed out to me ... it's YA. Perhaps some of the blood spatter wouldn't go over well...

Except that I just heard that "Arresting Merlin" will be appearing in Anthony Marchetta's Tales of the Once and Future King.

So ... yay!

Anyway, item the third: The new Luke Cage Trailer came out on Tuesday, and it looks like this.

Pardon me, but I have to say....

Ahem....

I AM POWER MAN [Cue Black Sabbath's "Iron Man"]

To start with, I note that Claire Temple (played by Rosario Dawson), the Night Nurse of Daredevil and even Jessica Jones, features prominently in this trailer. Perhaps as a source of continuity, perhaps because the character moved from Hell's Kitchen into Harlem, or perhaps because Luke Cage dated a Doctor Temple in the comics. Or perhaps they concluded they needed more Rosario Dawson. Considering how she stole the last episode of Jessica Jones, yes. Yes they do...

Though IMDB insists that she will only be in one episode of Luke Cage. If that's the case, I will be annoyed.

If you look closely at the Wolverine tank that Luke Cage emerges from (come on, tell me you didn't think the same thing), you'll notice metal around his forehead and wrists.

If you're wondering "that looks goofy, what the heck is this?"

"This" is the original Power Man outfit from the 70s.

Makes slightly more sense now, doesn't it?

You can also understand why I do not mind why he's running around the streets wearing a hoodie as a costume.

I like the feel of this one. It has a more classic feel to it. I'm not going to say "Blacksplotation," but more along the feel of Shaft, which I always thought was more than the standard B-movie fare. I suspect that feel comes from the soundtrack of the ad -- no, really, listen to it.

I also find the villain interesting. One, I like Mahershala Ali as an actor -- heck, I liked him on Crossing Jordan, back when his name was Mahershalalhashbaz Ali. Yes, really. He's playing Cornell Stokes, aka Cottonmouth. In the comics, Cottonmouth was just as strong as Luke Cage, with additional biting power, so this explains why Cage doesn't just snap his neck like a twig and be done with it. Why, yes, I am looking at you, Jessica Jones. Second, he's another Kingpin-esque character, and we know that these NetFlix shows do that correctly. And third, since he's in the drug business in Manhattan, this opens up the possibility to see folks like Madam Gao or Wilson Fisk. Though, again, IMDB tells me this is an erroneous guess. But I'd like to see IMDB proven wrong.

Given the reporters hovering around Luke Cage at the end of the trailer, I expect we're going to have someone at least float the concept of the Hero For Hire. For those of you who don't know, Luke Cage, along with Danny Rand, Iron Fist, teamed up and sold their services And Iron Fist is the next one in the Defenders phase 1.

At the end of the day ... I just like this guy. Mike Colter, as Cage, has gravitas. You can believe that he is the immovable object. And he's polite. He's soft spoken. He reads for recreation -- this is the first Marvel hero I've seen who reads since Steve Rogers (I'm sure someone will point out where I'm wrong in the comments). If you don't know Colter, he's been on Blue Bloods, Ringer, Zero Dark Thirty, Halo: Nightfall, Agent X, and those are just the things I've seen him in. This should be a star turn for him, and I'm going to enjoy it.

13 comments:

Congrats on the acceptance! Yours wasn't any less appropriate for young adults than Harry Potter or, for a more extreme example, "The Hunger Games"...

At any rate, technical point: We are a juvenile anthology, not specifically young adult. In this case that means our stories range anywhere from pure children's pieces to young adult - but no sex, nihilism, or gratuitous gore in any case.

I may experiment with a table of contents that organizes stories in both story order and age range, in case parents see the juvenile label and want to read it with their kids, which was one of the early intentions of the anthology.

This is looking like a fun anthology...very creative and eclectic. My story involves dogs, vampires, and staking said vampire on jousting lances with a golf cart. So you know, totally things you usually think of when King Arthur comes to mind :).

Please, by all means, leave a message below. I welcome any and all comments. However, language that could not make it to network television will result in your comment being deleted. I don';t like saying it, but prior events have shown me that I need to. Thanks.